Syphilis: Indigenous Americans' Gift to Columbus

Every child knows “in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” But in Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen updates it to: “In fourteen hundred and ninety-three, Columbus stole all the could see.” Columbus Day, the second Monday in October in the United States, is a day of fame and infamy. Those who don’t know the facts, or who prefer bullshit, celebrate the annual lovefest for explorer Christopher Columbus as an unqualified example of heroism, patriotism and adventure, even though he simply bumped into a landmass that he never admitted wasn’t in Asia.

            But, for those who know the truth, gold-hunting Columbus and his men are guilty of genocide: They enslaved, raped, pillaged, tortured and murdered the indigenous people, whom he claimed he “discovered,” living on their land, the land their ancestors had inhabited for thousands of years. Blaming Columbus and the Spanish, in his History of the Indies, the priest Bartolomé de las Casas writes that “there were 60,000 people living on this island [Hispaniola], including the Indians in 1508; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines.”

            The first people Columbus encountered were the Arawaks of the Bahamas. Hospitable, generous people they welcomed him and his men. But Columbus did not return the compliment, except to note that, because they were guileless, they could easily be enslaved: “With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

            During his four trips to the New World, Columbus went about blithely naming everything he saw. He called what is now Puerto Rico, “San Juan Bautista”; Cuba, “Juana”; the Cayman Islands, “Las Tortugas”).With the same aplomb, he had the hands, noses and ears of “the guilty” cut off for offenses from stealing corn to not bringing him enough gold. When Columbus didn’t find the gold he had promised his investors, he became a major slave trader, switching to a different form of brutality.

            With unimaginable cultural condescension, Michael S. Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute calls Columbus Day “A Time to Celebrate,” and attacks those who “view the arrival of . . . Columbus . . . as an occasion to be mourned.” He justifies Columbus’s land grab, because “what is now the United States was sparsely inhabited, unused, and undeveloped.” For shame that they hadn’t developed shopping malls! “The inhabitants were primarily hunter-gatherers, wandering across the land, living from hand to mouth and from day to day,” he goes on to say. “There was virtually no change, no growth for thousands.” Berliner also contends that “Western culture also brought enormous, undreamed-of benefits, without which most of today’s Indians [as he persists in calling them] would be infinitely poorer or not even alive”—ignoring the fact that most Indigenous People aren’t alive to enjoy any benefits, thanks to Columbus.

            Though Columbus Day is still a national holiday, all across the country, there are more and more protests against keeping it. And, in its place, cities and states celebrate “Native American Day” or “Indigenous People’s Day.”

            In the end, the indigenous people of the Americas gave Europeans a gift that has kept on giving: syphilis. Columbus’s men carried it back with them—a reminder that there is a law of karma and that payback, though sometimes slow in coming, is painfully sweet.

           

Tea party/GOP giving us the nightmare of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"

            John Galt, the evil genius of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” is “alive and well” roaming the halls of Congress. A figment of Rand’s fevered imagination, Galt continues to do serious damage through any number of assorted tea party/GOP extremists, like Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Rep. Eric Cantor. If, like most Americans, you've asked yourself how and why a radical minority of the GOP has refused to do business with the president, Democrats, and even members of their own party, no matter how dire the potential consequences for the country as a whole, the answer is simple: As latter-day John Galts, they are actually living out the plot of a work of fiction. That’s right! They are committed to using the same destructive tactic Galt did to bring the nation to its knees--to save it. They won’t tell you that’s what they’re doing: It’s too crazy. But that’s what it all boils down to.

            Rand idolizes Galt as the perfect hero: the ultimate capitalist, a rabid anti-socialist, a philosopher, inventor, leader, independent thinker, the consummate rebel against government and bureaucratic “moochers” who stand in the way of those who he believes really create and drive the economy. Surely, you can hear echoes of the rhetoric of the tea party/GOP. Now, you know where so much of it comes from. But that isn’t the half of it.

            As the torturous pace of Rand's story unfolds (1168 pages in my paperback edition), it ultimately becomes clear that Galt isn't only Rand’s “man" but her man "with a unique plan”: "The Strike," the ultimate tactic for bringing about sweeping economic and social change, a revolution to take the country back for the 1 percent, in today's political rhetoric, from those he brands communist, collectivist, socialist leeches. To that end, Galt entices one after another of those he considers the engine-drivers of the economy, captains of industry, simply to follow his lead and stop producing. That way, those he marks as lazy lowlifes (Mitt Romney's 47 percent/Paul Ryan's 60 percent who are "takers not makers") will no longer enjoy what he considers their free ride at the expense of others.

            Eventually, Galt and his cabal retreat to a quasi-mystical, hidden valley. They watch with callous resolve as the country falls deeper and deeper into desperation. The economy collapses. It's a dream-come-true for the perpetrators--and so simple: Just say no; opt out; let things fall apart. Finally, when Galt gives the word, they return to the shambles they've precipitated, forever vindicated and presumably ready to claim the spoils of victory.

            Depending upon your literary and political preferences, Galt’s “strike” may sound brilliant, ridiculous, evil, or preposterous as social commentary and a prescription for change. But surely, you can’t imagine anyone could possibly be so unglued as to want to implement such a deranged fantasy for real.

            Think again! Most of us have been living it without realizing it! It took the election of Barack Obama—and his perceived socialistic agenda—to coalesce a group around a full-fledged, real-life equivalent of a "strike," more sophisticated and under-the-radar than Galt's original but from the same playbook. A conspiracy of Galtans in Congress has gone beyond its efforts simply to indoctrinate young minds with the narcissistic ideology of "Atlas Shrugged." (Chief acolyte Cong. Paul Ryan, who would have been a heartbeat away from the presidency had Romney won, made his staffers read it.) Their forcing the nation into a manufactured debt-ceiling crisis, holding endless filibusters, relishing sequestration, doing anything and everything to stop administration initiatives, no matter how dire the consequences--all are John Galt 2.0: the way to win elections after losing them, to destroy the economy to recreate it. It’s constitutional government replaced by the outrageous plot of a bad novel.

       I know that for some people my equating John Galt’s “strike” with tea party/GOP tactics will sound like conspiracy-theory run amok: I will be branded the kook; the real kooks will get off the hook. So, I urge everyone to slog through as many of the 1168 pages of "Atlas Shrugged" as they can endure until they see the light. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.#

      

       

What right-wing nut jobs mean by freedom

        Freedom: It's the watchword of the right-wing nut jobs who have turned the Republican Party into a looney bin, the mantra that informs the beginning, middle, and end of every speech their spokespeople deliver, the lingua franca of their narrow, calcified slice of the hoi polloi, the poll-tested word guaranteed to resonate with gullible multitudes.        
       One of their major, Koch-brothers-backed front groups calls itself FreedomWorks. It should add "with billionaires' money." If they had their way, they'd rename the Liberty Bell and Statue of Liberty--and French fries. Sen. Marco Rubio invokes a boutique brand of anti-Fidel Castro freedom. Cong. Ron Paul glorifies freedom from anything and anyone governmental, especially the Federal Reserve. Mitt Romney revels in the quasi-religious freedom of markets. State your preference: There are freedom-lovers only too willing to join your cause or to invite you to embrace theirs. No matter that it's verbal mush, they'll jump at any chance to "let freedom ring."
       Of course, as is so often the case, things--especially those with the most high-minded monikers--are never what they seem. Turns out, members of the right-wing coalition that now controls the GOP may be dedicated to demanding their freedoms, but too often do so at the expense of those of others. Here are seven deadly freedoms freedom-lovers insist fulfill the original intent of the founding fathers:
       1. Freedom to pack heat, to shoot people first and not have to answer questions later: The Second Amendment has been perverted into a guaranteed profit stream for companies that manufacture and sell weapons, as well as for the National Rifle Association, putting the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" of innocent Americans at the mercy of the freedom-loving trigger-happy. One false move and you could wind up in their line of fire.
       2. Freedom to slur, slander, and otherwise defame others: In the name of our founding fathers, self-proclaimed freedom-lovers will exert their inalienable right to say whatever they wish about anything or anyone, with impunity--especially in political campaigns and when they know what they allege is an outright lie.
       3. Freedom from big government nosing around in their lives: "Get government off our backs" is the liberation chant of the right wing--with some major, hypocritical qualifications: "Don't mess with my Social Security" and "Hands off my Medicare."
       4. Freedom to tell others how they may lead their lives: Because their Bible tells them so, with fervor bordering on persecution, freedom-lovers feel totally justified telling others whom and how they may love and marry, what women may or may not do with their bodies, when life begins, and other assorted private matters that arise willy-nilly.
       5. Freedom to scam the public: In the vocabulary of freedom-lovers, nothing needs to be freer than the marketplace. They defend liars, cheats, and dissemblers out to make a buck, even unscrupulously, believing that by some mysterious moral mechanism markets always self-correct and scoundrels get caught--unmoved by how many victims may be harmed in the meantime and never made whole.
       6. Freedom to speculate in financial markets without oversight or accountability: Even after the recent implosion of the global economy, freedom-lovers insist that controls in the public interest interfere with their God-given right to make billions, no matter who loses in the process. Trust no one with your money.
       7. Freedom from taxes (aka paying your fair share): Ayn Rand, high priestess of personal freedom, believed that taxes should be voluntary. Of course, she's lucky they aren't, because she depended upon Social Security and Medicare in the final years of her life. No freedom-lover has ever told me how you can run a modern, global economy without a source of revenue--or what a fair tax rate would be. Instead, they resort to espousing extremist, untenable positions.
       If you're scratching you're head now, you should be: Freedom-lovers' freedom looks a lot like hypocrisy (at best) and tyranny (at worst). When they talk to each other, they revel in coming unglued, spinning unrealistic, idealistic, even hallucinatory scenarios for saving the republic from itself. But grownups know better. They are less concerned with freedom than with understanding its limits, the extremes we are willing to back away from to live constructively with others.
       So, the next time you hear anyone wax effusive about defending freedom, tell them that you totally agree--and that, for you, it begins with being free of them.#

Stephen L. Goldstein Says . . .: Truth about Bush Family Dynasty: DISASTER for Amer...

Stephen L. Goldstein Says . . .: Truth about Bush Family Dynasty: DISASTER for Amer...:             Members of the Bush Family Dynasty who now aspire to political office have apparently concluded that it is “safe” to surface, l...

Truth about Bush Family Dynasty: DISASTER for America

            Members of the Bush Family Dynasty who now aspire to political office have apparently concluded that it is “safe” to surface, less than five years after the debacle of George W.’s presidency. George P., eldest son of Jeb, has filed to run for Texas land commissioner. Jeb Jr. is rumored to be planning to run for Congress from south Florida.

            Of course, far more important are Jeb Bush’s likely plans to run for president. (Don’t believe for a moment that he’s undecided!) And why not?  He, not his older brother, was the Dynasty’s designated heir apparent to the White House; he was deprived of his birthright. To hear national pundits, Jeb still enjoys a stellar reputation as one of the nation’s most successful governors. Recently, he said that he has “a voice” and intends to speak out on issues.

            But Jeb Bush is not the man people say or may think he is. As governor he was autocratic and presumed to impose a right-wing ideological agenda. So, it’s up to Floridians to warn the rest of the country of the disaster of his ever becoming president. Even before he formally declares his candidacy, as he uses his “voice” to promote himself, people need to ask him tough questions about his beliefs and record in office. In the words of Ricky Ricardo, he’s “got some splainin to do.” For starters, here are five positions he needs to clarify:

            War: Along with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, “Scooter” Libby, and 20 others, Jeb signed the “Statement of Principles” of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century. Established in 1997, its goal was “to promote American global leadership”—specifically in one tragic instance, to make the case for going to war with Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power. Jeb needs to say if he thinks our invading Iraq was the proper thing to do—and if he still agrees with neoconservative foreign policy.

            Anti-abortion: Jeb will no doubt try to position himself as a moderate on women’s issues. He has said he thinks abortion should be permitted only in cases of rape, incest, and a threat to the life of the mother. And yet, fulfilling a campaign promise, he signed a law creating a highly controversial “Choose Life” Florida license plate.(No “Choose Choice” was allowed.) He also signed a law regulating abortion clinics, but no other outpatient facilities. He needs to be asked if, as president, he would appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court and if he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

            Terri Schiavo: Jeb abused the power of his office when he sided with the family of Terri Schiavo, a brain-dead woman who had been on a feeding tube for more than 15 years, and against her husband who wished to remove it. The spectacle of legal briefs, news conferences, and a special session of the U.S. Senate drew national attention and dragged on, though Jeb and the Schiavo family lost every round. He needs to be asked if he would have handled the situation differently.

            Ending separation between church and state: Jeb does not respect the fundamental separation of church and state. The Florida Constitution prohibits direct and indirect funding of religion. But, thanks to him, there are now four faith-based prisons in the state, oddly never challenged in the courts. Recently, he was behind the (fortunately, failed) effort to pass a constitutional amendment to allow unrestricted tax dollars to fund religion. He needs to justify his position.

            Privatization: During one of his inaugural speeches, Jeb looked out at the state office buildings around him and said that it would be a sign of our maturity if they were empty. If he had his way, he would turn over to for-profit interests all government services, roads, bridges, air traffic control, and education, of course—with little or no oversight. People need to ask him what he believes are the proper roles of government.

            While Jeb is making up his mind about when formally to announce his presidential candidacy, voters need to ask if electing a third or fourth or fifth President Bush is in the best interests of the nation or if two from the Dynasty is already one too many.#

           

Democrats are wusses; Republicans are wolves: Filibuster reform

            Bold, energetic, progressive—Republican Teddy Roosevelt believed it was best to “speak softly and carry a big stick,” especially when negotiating with others around the world—and it worked for him. He was the force behind the development of the Panama Canal and negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War. He busted Big Business monopolies with a passion. He said and did what he meant.

            The Barack Obama corollary to T.R. is “first, emphatically to declare what you’re willing and not willing to do, then cave in, sometimes even before anyone challenges you—and pretend what you originally said didn’t matter.” Chronically, the president suffers from Spineless Democrat Syndrome (SDS), which appears to be incurable.

            Surely, you remember the (eventually scuttled) “public option,” the originally touted sine qua non of Obama’s health insurance reform. It would have been offered by the federal government for anyone who couldn’t afford, or who had been rejected by, private insurance. Does the president think we wouldn’t be outraged that he walked away from one of the best and most attractive features of his plan because of what had to have been a backroom deal?

            Surely, you remember that, for months while he was campaigning, the president said he would absolutely, positively, never sign a bill that would keep us from going over the “fiscal cliff” unless it raised taxes on families making $250,000 or more—but then he caved in to Republicans and some members of his own party, and set the bar at $450,000. Does the president think he can continue to bait and switch with impunity?

             In addition to the White House, there is a recent, virulent case of SDS in the U.S. Senate. Much has been made of Harry Reid’s having been an amateur boxer. But I hope he scored better punches in the ring than he has in politics in recent days. For months, he huffed and puffed and said he would blow the overused-by-Republicans filibuster in the Senate down. But, in the end, he turned out to be a bag of hot air.

           

             Reid and Senate Democrats should have made sweeping changes in the way legislation is debated, passed, or obstructed. They should have passed the so-called “talking filibuster,” making senators who want to torpedo legislation defend their (likely untenable) position live on C-SPAN. They should have ended a single senator’s ability to stop a nomination for office. They should have lowered the 60-vote requirement to stop a filibuster.

            Instead, they passed an embarrassing bunch of procedural tweaks that still let the tea party/GOP hijack the Senate and obstruct Obama’s second term agenda. But, if the tea party/GOP were in the majority, its members would never have behaved so weakly. Democrats are wusses; Republicans are wolves.

            I understand Democrats’ short-sighted, self-serving reasoning: If and when they are again in the minority, they want to be able to do to Republicans what Republicans have done to them. In addition, reforming the filibuster would be a hollow gesture: The tea party/GOP-dominated House will block almost everything passed in the Senate. Obama will have to mobilize the public to put pressure on members of Congress and govern by executive order if he wants to get anything done.

            But, by looking out only for themselves and thinking only about legislation, Democrats have put the future of the nation at risk for generations. Presidents come and go in four to eight years, but justices may affect history for decades. Arch-conservative Antonin Scalia has dominated the Court since 1986.  From one to three Supreme Court justices may retire during Obama’s second term. But, without filibuster reform, the president’s (likely liberal) nomination(s) will be bitterly fought, almost certainly stopped. Crafting legislation requires compromise. No one gets everything (s)he wants. But lifetime appointments to the highest court in the land need to be fought tooth and nail. Because the president suffers from SDS, he is likely to sell out on Supreme Court nominees—with disastrous consequences.

             Obama 2.0 needs to channel Teddy Roosevelt with a twist: speak loudly, carry a big stick—and use it. But I am not optimistic that he and Democrats will recover from SDS anytime soon. So, why did we elect them?#

           

             

Conservatism is an (incurable?) illness!

 email Stephen L. Goldstein: trendsman@aol.com

After careful, thoughtful, longtime, objective, clinical observation, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that “conservatitis,” the mutant of mainstream conservatism that is epidemic today, is a certifiable illness—curable only by a protocol of extra-strength liberalism. But I get ahead of myself out of pity and my desire to give hope to the afflicted. First things, first: Victims and those who care for them need to understand the exact nature and extent of the seven “deadly” symptoms of “conservatitis” before taking or administering “the cure.”

1. Lack of empathy: Congressional tea party/Republicans have opposed extending unemployment benefits. Defrocked presidential candidate Herman Cain said that if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself—not Wall Street or big banks. Newt Gingrich suggested that poor people are lazy and have no work ethic. Mitt Romney justifies doing away with thousands of jobs to create thousands more of them.

2. Paranoia: Victims of “conservatitis” fantasize about enemies and threats to their health everywhere, particularly in election years. One year, it’s same-sex couples who want to get married. The next year, it’s illegal immigrants. There’s always someone or something out to get them. This year, it may be the tooth fairy conspiring with the Easter bunny.

3. Hallucinations: The “conservatitis” epidemic has disproportionately affected tea party/GOP governors and state legislatures that have enacted sweeping, draconian measures to combat voter serious fraud—which doesn’t exist.

4. A neurotic desire to live in the past: A failed Republican primary candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nevada suggested that, “in the olden days,” “our grandparents” paid doctors with chickens—and we should do the same.

5. Selective morality: Newt Gingrich says he cheated on his wife “for love of country”—and God has forgiven him. I say she isn’t fooled—and hasn’t.

6. A neurotic commitment to failure: It has been said that the difference between a rat in a maze guessing that a wrong door has the cheese behind it and a human in the same predicament is that the rat will eventually move on to a different door. Republican prez wannabes persist in claiming that lowering taxes raises revenues when it doesn’t. Wrong door, rotten cheese.

7. An abnormal desire to pledge: Even in its mildest form, “conservatitis” leaves victims unable to think for themselves. Grover Norquist boasts that 238 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 41 U.S. Senators, and more than 1,100 state officeholders have signed his no-taxes pledge—an impeachable offense.

The jury is out on whether “conservatitis” is an acquired disease or the result of a genetic predisposition. Either way, there is hope. Experiments at McGill University and the University of Chicago suggest that rats have empathy for each other. Perhaps they could supply the missing gene for tea party/GOP with “conservatitis.” Science has also proven that the neurochemical oxytocin makes people trustworthy and moral. So, it could be the basis for a vaccine to treat symptoms of “conservatitis.” For others, substituting Judeo-Christian teachings for the Godless rants of Ayn Rand may suffice. Liberalism is founded upon the ethical and moral teachings of the Old and New Testaments. Read for their original intent, they could heal ailing conservatives.

For victims of “conservatitis” who are untreatable or unwilling to take the cure, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do”—and vote Democratic!#